


Rage of the Incredible She-Hulk

by CrimsonResistance



Category: The Incredible Hulk (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anger Management, Dreams and Nightmares, Female Friendship, Female Protagonist, Gen, Hulk Smash (Marvel), Police, Search for a Cure, Strong Female Characters, Transformation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-27 21:55:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15034142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimsonResistance/pseuds/CrimsonResistance
Summary: When Dr. Talia Walker gets angry or upset, she transforms unwillingly into the raging beast known as the She-Hulk. When an attempt to analyze her changes and get insight into a potential cure goes wrong, Talia finds herself plunged into a chase to not only keep the power of her creature out of the wrong hands, but also to unlock the secrets of the She-Hulk's existence.





	1. One Small Oversight

_Stay calm. Think rationally._

Talia Walker was in trouble. Her brain knew this, but it was imperative her body not believe it. Not just for her sake, but for everybody else's.

The woman's fingers typed furiously away at the computer terminal, scrolling through menus, attempting desperately to find a way to disable the alarm that was blaring throughout the lab she had infiltrated. There were so many active subroutines, and Talia knew she could disable it, if only she could find the correct ones.

Disabling the system would probably not stop the authorities from showing up at this point, Talia acknowledged, but turning off the security system would give her the advantage of removing security cameras from the equation for her escape, plus unlocking her path out of the area.

Talia shot her eyes from the computer monitor to the nearby digital clock on the wall. It had been two minutes and ten seconds since she had mistakenly - and carelessly - activated the laboratory's security system. That left just slightly more than another 2 or 3 minutes before she could expect a response.

Menus continued to cycle quickly as Talia's fingers tapped against the keyboard. Pulling her right hand from the console, she quickly dragged her arm against her forehead, wiping up beads of sweat that had started to form. Extending her middle and forefinger and pacing them on her neck, the woman measured her pulse.  _Elevated. Not good. Stay calm. Stay calm._ Talia used her fingers to push her glasses up the bridge of her nose before returning to the keyboard.

She had been so careful in her planning, so careful in her execution. One small oversight and everything Talia had planned was in danger of being for naught.

 _Wait!_ Talia ceased her typing and paused for a second, before frantically tapping her finger on the keyboard's up arrow, cycling back through her previous commands.  _There it is._ Hitting return, Talia held her breath. Seconds on the clock ticked away, before the alarm finally fell silent.

"Yes!" she shouted, before quickly slapping a hand over her mouth. Not the time to celebrate. Quickly cycling once more through the now-unlocked system, she confirmed that the closed circuit camera system had been disabled.  _Yes!_

She shot her hand out, grabbing a set of purple-tinged vials that sat on the table next to her, and slipped them into a backpack before flinging it onto her shoulder and dashing out of the room. Once in the corridor, Talia took a sharp right and ran as fast as her feet would carry her.

_Just gotta get outside. One step at a time. Stay calm. Think rationally._

Talia had memorized the layout of the laboratory - the blueprints had been her lunchtime reading for the past few weeks. Every sharp turn, every set of doors, every staircase that she found herself running through now she could visualize in her head as her brain calculated split-second decisions that would bring her one step closer to freedom.

Her feet completing the final steps of the staircase, Talia broke into a stride and pushed through the double doors into the final corridor before she froze. Blue and red lights.

Down at the far end of the hallway were large, heavy doors - the building's entrance - and through their windows she could make out the sight of police cruisers and armed officers. The door shook emitted an angry bang as it shook from vibrations - no doubt a battering ram.

"No, no, no, the police are here too early," Talia frantically spoke to herself. "No!"

A sudden crash echoed through the hallway as the door gave way, with several officers immediately pouring in through the now open entrance. Stumbling backwards, the woman spun herself and immediately began sprinting in the opposite direction, calculating her next best route with her mental map of the facility.

"Hey you, stop!" voices behind her shouted. "This is the police!"

She needed to lose them - every step would need to be executed perfectly or she would risk arrest - or worse.  _Stay calm. Think rationally._

Left, left, right, left. Talia darted her way through the halls, her mind choosing paths af it were engaged in a live maze. Footsteps were persistent, if not growing slightly more distant, behind her. If she were lucky, they'd miss one of her turns and make the wrong guess.

 _I can cut through this door to an emergency exit,_  Talia thought.  _Hopefully it will-_

As Talia pushed through the door towards her new escape route, there, too were police waiting for her. She fell to her hands and knees in a panic as she struggled to stop, before clawing her way back through the door she had just entered.

Her heart had skipped a beat, and now was beating twice as hard, she felt, to make up for it. Footsteps echoed down all the hallways and she had no idea which directions were safe, if there were any at all.

Desperately, the woman spotted an open lab room across the hall. Without any other options, she quickly dashed into the space and slammed the door shut behind her, flipping the lock and falling to the floor. Talia scrambled away from the doorway, away from the lone window the room had, in hopes that the police hadn't seen her clearly in either of their encounters thus far.

Seconds later, banging came on the door. "Open up! Police!"

Talia swallowed a lump in her throat. She hid behind one of the lab desks, her mind racing through its options. There was no other entrance or exit besides the one she had taken, and the police were now waiting right outside. In trying to escape capture, she had only delayed the inevitable - she was a sitting duck.

Her nerves twitched, her body was shaking.  _Stay calm. Stay calm. Stay -_

A loud crash echoed from the door as the entranceway's frame shook violently and Talia screamed in fright. The battering ram had arrived.

And so had a familiar, gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her heart had eclipsed racing and now was roaring inside of her chest. The rush of fear and anxiety had taken its toll on the young woman. Calm was off the table. Adrenaline firing, her whole body shook as a wave of raw emotion flooded over her.

Her new nightmare had arrived again. The change had begun.

Talia didn't want to believe it - she never did. She fumbled into her pants pocket for her cellphone and quickly activated the front-facing camera, aiming it towards her eyes. If her shaking body hadn't been enough to convince her, the sight literally staring back at her was: a pair of pale green eyes, almost glowing in their look. This was the color they took when the transformation was triggered, she had learned in her previous changes.

"No, not the change! Not now!" The feeling of fear turned into a moment of raw anger. "NO!" she shouted as she waved her arm through a line of test tubes, knocking them to the ground where the glass shattered into dozens of pieces across the sterile floor.

A wave of pain shot through Talia's body as the woman doubled over, falling to her knees as her hands shot to her stomach. A harsh chill swept over her, goosebumps rising on her skin as she could feel her heart pounding against her chest, the adrenaline pumping within her veins.

Looking back over her shoulder, Talia saw the doors continue to shudder against the battering ram. It wasn't going to last much longer. However, neither was she.

Quickly, Talia removed her backpack and fished inside for the set of vials, pulling them from the bag and quickly shoving them as far as they could go inside both of her pockets.

She felt another powerful surge of adrenaline flow through her and momentarily she lost control of her muscles, falling forward. After a second, her hands instinctively shot out to brace her from her fall, veins engorged and tinted a glowing green. With a spasm, her arm muscles began to expand slowly in pulses, spreading in a wave up her shoulders, down her back and throughout her torso, stretching the fabric of her blouse taut.

She tried to fight the metamorphosis by focusing on staying herself, no matter how futile she knew it would be. Her brain had always been the strongest muscle in her body, ever since she had been a kid, but she had found in the past few months that in these situations, no matter how much she fought, her brainpower could not stand a chance. In the end, all that she was would always be lost in the mindlessness of unchecked rage.

In these moments, Talia could always handle her body betraying her with the change into the beast. But she could never forgive her brain betraying her and turning her into a monster.

There was a raw, intense power building within her core - an endless, untapped energy aching to be released unto the world. Her struggle to remain Talia Walker, she knew, was coming to an end. Another surge of adrenaline washed throughout her body and - unable to fight it any longer - the energy exploded into her being.

Talia screamed.

The woman arched backward as her torso began to grow, stretching the covering past its very limits. Muscles tore through the fabric of her blouse with ease, shredding the sky blue coverings over her arm, chest and back. The buttons stretched tightly in the front gave out, bursting off like bullets firing from a gun as expanding breasts popped the clasp of the bra beneath.

Talia knew that her body was engulfed in agony, but beyond the initial stages of her transformation all the pain had been dulled by the massive amounts of adrenaline her body was secreting. Her mind, too, was already beginning to struggle against the explosion of raw emotion fighting its way out. There was no room for pain, only what she could describe as shock.

The woman, her body now top-heavy as her upper frame expanded, glared toward the door once more, the frame now bent and cracked, giving way bit by bit.  _NO! They'll be...here….soon. Must...not...hurt-_

Her line of thought slowly became lost among a stream of blurry consciousness as she attempted to struggle to her feet. As Talia found her footing, her growing feet struggled to find balance in her now constricting boots. Toes burst forth through her footwear as dark denim jeans grew tight against the growth of her legs muscles. Tears began to form in the seams surrounding her calf muscles, before ripping themselves down her limbs, revealing skin that was beginning to darken into a greenish hue.

The near-transformed woman stumbled over to the wall, shooting her arms out to brace herself. Equipped with an increasing power, her right hand plunged effortlessly through the thick wall of the lab. Talia shook her head in an attempt to focus, attempting to pull out her wedged fist, and using her free hand to wipe away the lengthening green locks flowing down upon her face. She growled in frustration.

Her head was pounding, her vision blurry, her body powerful, her thoughts...her thoughts...

"I must- I must get to - get out of dang-MUST PUT AN END TO DANGER."

Talia Walker was no more. Everything went black


	2. Human Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Talia wakes up after her most recent She-Hulk episode.

Chapter 2: Lucky

Rage. Power. Destruction.

The creature's mind thought only of these things. She did not distinguish between human or object - all was an obstacle in her way.

The way to freedom. The way to peace.

She had awoken in confusion in a place that was not familiar to her. The space was small and confining, with no clear escape route. Loud noises whistled in the distance. She was . . . afraid.

Her fists had clenched. No. She was not afraid, afraid was small, afraid was weak. She was not small, she was not weak, not puny.

She was angry, she had the power, and she was going to destroy anything that got in her way.

Powerful muscles flexed, veins carrying irradiated blood flexed against rippled green skin and in a flash, the room had been no more, just rubble of something that had tried to stop her.

Feet crashed through tile floors as the creature's feet carried her in swift, large strides down hallways, while her arms cleared out anything that would threaten to slow down her pace: doors, walls, or puny humans. Obstacles.

Finally, her fiery eyes locked onto a glimpse of open air, a glimpse of freedom. She approached head on, knowing there was only one thing she had to do to be free. The creature gritted her teeth, channeled her rage, and prepared to. . .

* * *

Talia Walker's world smashed back into consciousness. Only blurs were currently visible - the harsh rays of the sun blinded her immediate view of the surroundings. Overloaded senses couldn't tell left from right, up from down. The doctor could feel her heart racing as confusion and panic set in.

_Calm. Down._

Taking a deep breath, Talia closed her eyes and centered herself, slowing her heart rate and willed her body back into control instead of in the leash of her emotions. Fear, anger, confusion - they were all silenced and tucked deep within her core. Her brain was back, it was time to flex it again.

Calm. Safety. Humanity.

The woman's mind thought only of these things now. It was imperative to make sure these would be a reality for the foreseeable future.

She brought her hands to her face and felt the contours. Soft skin, small rounded nose, pronounced cheekbones and a sharper chin that she wasn't so fond of. All features she recognized - she was herself again, the monster had gone to sleep.

She opened her eyes and the blurs were now in focus, at least as much as they could be with the loss of her glasses. Countless rows of trees surrounded her, trunks stretching skyward with branches full of green leaves forming a lush canopy, with the sun brightly shining through small gaps of the foliage. She herself was fraily leaning against the thick trunk of a rough-barked tree. The doctor wiggled her bare feet, her toes digging into damp soil beneath her.

Talia sighed - partially in relief and in annoyance. She was in the woods.

Goose bumps prickled up her skin as the chill of the surrounding air touched her bare skin. Her body ached and her head, though hers again, throbbed in pain.

Talia brought her hands down, crossing them to touch bare shoulders, running them down across her naked torso, before they snagged ragged remains of denim barely clinging on to her hips - the only piece of clothing that had survived her metamorphosis.

As she fumbled with the remains of her former jeans, a short burst of panic ignited in Talia's brain, her hands immediately shooting for her pockets. As her fingers fished inside, they contacted smooth glass tubes. An instant wave of relief washed over her as she slipped them out - they had survived, her mission had not been for naught.

Relief was short-lived, quickly segueing into a burst of frustration."Luck," Talia scoffed at herself. She glanced down at the vials in her hands, which had not taken any serious damage riding shotgun with her alter-ego. "You got careless."

She had studied the lab's security system thoroughly, but had gotten impatient inside the lab and triggered the alarm while removing the vials from their containment unite. All after being so careful getting up to that point. Her impatience led to police, police led to panic, panic led to . . .  _the change._

Talia crouched down to the ground and leaned her back into the nearby tree, pulling her knees up to her face and wrapping her arms around her legs, dangling the three purple vials between her thumb and palm. Her eyes let her surroundings fade out of focus while the beams of sunlight filtering through the opaque liquid commanded her attention.

The creature had been emerging for nearly four months now - four incredibly long and taxing months, four months that Talia Walker would do anything to have back. For all the education she had, all the intelligence she possessed, all she had learned about her transformations and their consequences, she hadn't yet found a way to undo the big mistake that had brought this creature, this  _monster_  into the world.

_Purple is my favorite color._  Talia slightly shifted her hand back and forth, causing the vials to clink together and the purple liquid inside to spawn tiny ripples.  _Maybe this is a good sign._

"No, don't do that to yourself. Don't get your hopes up."

A cold chill washed over her body. Talia remembered the experiment all those months ago. She remembered when she had first felt something was wrong. When her body first began to change into something not hers. . . .

"No!" Talia balled up her free hand and smashed it into the dirt, the damp soil spreading underneath her fist. Anger washed through her body.

_No_.  _Don't it get you again._  Anger was one of the triggers. She always made this mistake. The first key priority was always to keep her emotions in check. Letting any of them get a hold of her was dangerous - these are what brought forth her changes in the first place. Several times, after waking up half-naked in strange places, panic, fear and anger would often cause her to immediately re-transform into the creature.

The doctor rested her head into her knees.  _I need to get out of here, get back to my home, find some new clothes and be me again._

She sighed.  _OK, second stroke of luck, please._  She returned the three vials to her right pocket, then used her left hand to fish into her left pocket. Her cell phone was there, too.

"Two for two." Talia smirked, unlocking the device and scrolling down to the most frequently used number in her recent contacts, then hitting dial. "Luck is saving my ass."

* * *

The black station wagon pulled up on the grass and spun its wheels against the muddy turf, pushing the well-used vehicle as close as possible to the barrier of trees. The driver shifted the car into park, twisted out of the front seat and pulled on the handle of the rear right door, pushing the door open.

Exactly 11 seconds later, a half-naked brown-haired woman, one arm draped across her chest and the other holding a ragged piece of ripped jeans from falling off of her hips, darted out from the shadows of the woods and dove into the car, shutting the door behind her. With the power of a four-cylinder engine, the station wagon peeled back onto pavement and onto the side road.

Talia Walker breathed a sigh of relief and melted into the cloth seats of the car.  _Lucky again._ She opened her eyes and stared forward into the car's rear view mirror, where she met a pair of brown eyes staring back at her.

"Rough night, huh?" said the woman driving the car, her voice tinged with sympathy, yet also infused with a touch of humor.

Talia nodded. "Most of them are, nowadays, Rachel."

Rachel shook her head, the long, sand-colored hair that wasn't pinned to the driver seat by her back bouncing around. Her voice lost the humorous tone, replaced with a more weighted seriousness. "Hey, Tal, it's going to be all right."

The doctor forced a smile to her face and adopted a slightly more positive tone. "Well, this is a good start, I guess."

There was an extended length of silence as the pair drove, avoiding eye contact. Talia slumped down in her seat, only letting her eyes breach the bottom of the window. Her body yearned for sleep, but she forced herself to stay awake, at least until she could get back to her house.

"Hey, Tal?"

Talia moved only her eyes, meeting her friend's gaze once more in the mirror.

"I know you're going through a rough time and all, but for goodness sake, please put on a shirt at least."

The doctor blushed, moving her head around before finally noticing a pile of folded clothes sitting next to her - spares she had given to Rachel in the past in case of moments like these.

"Sorry, Rachel, I'm without my glasses so I'm not in the best vision at the moment."

"I don't care, friendo," Rachel said, the humor-lightened voice returned. "I'd prefer we keep our dress code business casual."

Talia found herself smiling a bit, for real this time. Rachel often leaned hard on humor in their interactions to lighten the mood, which was usually an initially-rejected but quickly-welcomed form of recovering from an incident.

"Thank you," said Talia, clasping the back of a fresh bra together on her stomach, before twisting it around and pulling it up over her chest, letting the straps fall over her shoulders. "Seriously, thank you, Rachel, you've saved my life in so many ways. I owe you." She pushed each of her arms through a cotton sweater, then pulled her head through before pulling it down over her torso. She went to unhook her pants, or what was left of them, and once again felt the vials in her pockets.

"No, Tal," said Rachel, once again losing her light-hearted inflection. "I'm the one who owes you a million. Your changes -"

"Let's not focus on that," said Talia, once more retrieving the three purple vials from her pants. "However, there's something I'd like us to focus on later today." She shook the vials once more. "A real change, perhaps."


End file.
